Last book I _read_ cover-to-cover was probably "Blink" or some
other Malcolm Gladwell book when he was a "thing" a few years
back. But I've been online since 1989 and have done most of my
reading in adult life behind a computer screen. I go to the
library frequently though because there's a lot of stuff that's
just not online yet and there's something about the Dewey
Decimal system that I like and the randomness of opening a book
in an area I want to know something about, hitting the index,
table of contents and flipping through randomly to find
something interesting. Usually I just hold the book loosely at
the binding and see what page it falls open to. This is how I
know I'm at a page that SOMEBODY found _really_ worth focusing
on, and I'm never disappointed. I don't want libraries or paper
books to go away mostly because of the growing disappearance of
information on the Internet. The window of the 'net is very
narrow. I mean some of it goes way back - Google Books is
FANTASTIC as are the increasing newspaper archives. But this?
Look at this posting here. Where will it be when Facebook goes
under eventually? Nowhere, unless somebody saves it. What about
websites that go under? If you're lucky, Internet archive has a
copy of some sort, but generally, it's gone and gone forever.
The cloud isn't going to help because IT'S a fad that will have
its big data wipe when the "Next Big Idea" comes along and the
Cloud looks old fashioned. So, I'm glad for hard copies and
local backup sources. I like the cloud a lot but anybody who
depends on it for long-term archival is going to be
disappointed. Nature of the beast.
